The present invention relates to a gateway apparatus and a system, and it relates, in particular, to a gateway apparatus and a system, enabling to execute a service application among a plural number of service undertakers with safety.
Conventionally, a home network system for controlling equipments or apparatuses, which are connected with a home network, is connected through the home network, and thereby proposing or achieving one, which controls mutually between two (2) or more of the equipments or apparatuses installing a standard protocol, such as, UPnP or ECHONET, for example.
However, with such the conventional home network system, there are following problems; i.e., communication cannot be made between the equipments or apparatus, one being operable with the protocol different from that of the other, and also that it is difficult to extend the functions to others, which are owned by the application installed in the equipment in advance, if it is desired after introduction of the system.
For this reason, in recent years is proposed a means for enabling to extend the functions of home appliances under an environment of the home network, by conducting installation and management of an application into the equipment to be controlled at home, through a framework for assisting an integration of home network middleware, such as, HAVi, UPnP, Jini, HWW, etc., for example, but without being controlled by the home network middleware (for example, Patent Document 1).
The home network system in the Patent Document 1 introduces an application server, which installs OSGi framework for integrally assisting the various kinds of home network middleware, so as to provide a middleware service for accessing various kinds of devices, as a bundling function, and thereby achieving a home network system without being restricted with such the middleware.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-213612 (FIG. 3)